Cold Blood

Note: Harsher content than usual on this website

Nik had pissed himself once in the last thirty-two hours. This probably meant he was dehydrated. The air around him was bone dry, and it made the heavy layer of snow around the little village almost unbearably bright. Fortunately he still had his snow goggles on, and he was able to keep his gaze fixed on the other tower in the village. He could tell that his breath was getting less and less moisture caught under the scarf he’d bundled up to the very edge of the goggles. The snow was falling very lightly, still dusting over. A shelled hole in the roof meant Nik could see the little flakes dancing inside the tower as well, though he had ceased to feel them. He didn’t dare move from the small slit he peered through with his rifle – he had named the rifle Irina, as a joke, but he took it more seriously than he could ever bring himself to admit. It was his only friend, and he wished ardently that he’d taken a mistress and been given a radio. Who he would call, he wasn’t sure; the Soviets had pulled back, and the Finns had pursued. As far as he knew, there were only two living souls for miles.

He knew somewhere in the other tower, the other sniper must be cradling his own rifle, looking towards the hiding spot. Nik had seen the glint and a little bit of movement the day before, and had known it had to be a sniper, left so far away from the main body. Eventually, one of them would get exhausted and move, adjust position. Then, death would come and the other man would be able to shake out his bones with the ache of almost a day-and-a-half of sleepless freezing.

Nik suddenly wondered if he had, in fact, stayed awake the entire night. Perhaps he had dozed for a moment. No, that cannot be; if he’d fallen asleep in this temperature, he’d never have woken up. He could feel the urine in his trousers crystallize slightly in the cold, and he had stopped feeling his toes before the moon rose. This was tenable. It had to be; he would wait until the end of the war if it came to it.

For the first time, his cold-addled brain came to a realization. The other sniper hadn’t so much as breathed in the entire time. Had Nik imagined the movement in the cold? Or had he left? Nik ventured half an inch of movement to look around the tower and see if there were footprints in the snow. He knew that the only exit from the tower had been the door, but forgot to consider the night before that a shell could have carved the back of the tower open. He silently cursed himself for failing to check before he’d begun looking in his own tower. Looking for footprints, however, was useless. Though the snow wasn’t heavy, any prints would have been gone within fifteen minutes. Had Nik fallen asleep the night before? He rested his cheek back on the buttstock.

He’d fallen asleep.

Again.

He did not jerk awake, but a moment seemed to have passed and the sun was moving towards the horizon. He cursed aloud, once, softly. So much for the iron will of the northerners. He was crumbling under this. He would die here, in a tower, surrounded by a ghostly village. He’d never make it to the main body, just starve and freeze alone in the Finnish snow. It was a good death.

Nik pushed himself up, barely managing to drag himself to his feet. His legs staggered beneath him, unable to so much as bear his weight without folding him. He placed one hand on the wall and the other on the stock of his rifle to stay hunched over, his legs in agony.
He felt something push his head back, hard and fast, like he’d been punched in the eye. He spun and saw matter sprayed across the snow; it was red and visceral, and Nik immediately placed it as fresh offal, like a slaughterhouse.

That was as far as his thoughts went before he began to freeze in the snow.